Las Vegas Police snub Laura Ingraham

Ingraham said they had made repeated requests to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, to have one law enforcement representative update them on the air about the status of the investigation.

In response to their requests, the LVMPD press information office sent an e-mail to The Ingraham Angle stating, ‘No one from the LVMPD will be participating in any interviews about the 1 October incident for The Ingraham Angle. Thank you for your interest.’

That should have been expected as transparency and truthfulness, in this case, has flown right out the window from the very beginning.

Clark County Sheriff, Joe Lombardo who runs the LVMPD has done nothing but barrage the public with his lies, unverified information, convoluted excuses for incompetence and his many contradictory statements.

What has been so appalling is the local media’s stance of hands-off, free pass, do not challenge Lombardo on anything concerning the investigation of the worst mass shooting in American history.

What is so disgraceful is that most of the national mainstream media haven’t picked up on the many aspects of this investigation that should be the subject of ongoing extensive scrutiny.

They seem to have forgotten about the Las Vegas tragedy and that 58 people died and over 550 were wounded and injured.

People have told me what do you want them to talk about, we know nothing except what the police and the FBI have said. Well that in and of itself speaks volumes because nothing about what we have been told from the start makes any sense.

Within hours of the massacre, the FBI and the LVMPD said Stephen Paddock was a lone gunman and he was not connected to any group, foreign or domestic and we should all feel safe. Amazing how fast they came up with that narrative. I would have felt a hell of a lot safer had they prevented the attack from occurring at all. And by the way, as I have said so many times, the massacre should never have happened.

I put most of the blame on MGM Resorts International the owners of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. They, along with other resorts, were put on notice for years from the US Department of Homeland Security to implement security procedures to thwart an active shooter and/or a terrorist attack.

You can disagree all you want, but 23 firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition and magazines made its way into Paddock’s room. Then after reading the search warrant affidavits that were released on Friday we found out that about 100 pounds of explosive material made it into the Valet parking area of the Mandalay Bay Hotel unimpeded. That alone is a travesty.

I wrote previously that I believe that the LVMPD command should have planned for a sniper attack from an elevated position by having counter-snipers on standby in the area and ready to go, just in case.

Then I read that some in law enforcement were saying that there was no place for a counter-sniper to deploy from because there was low ground across from the Mandalay Bay and that it would have been too dangerous to deploy a counter sniper from a police helicopter.

Well, that is simply not true on many levels according to others. If that was true, then where did the LVMPD snipers deploy from on that night?

After one hour and five minutes after the last shots were fired, an entry team breached Paddock’s suite. On CBS News’s 60 Minutes show the Sunday following the attack, an LVMPD officer said he didn’t want to move the curtains in the room in fear in may be shot by one of their snipers. So where were those snipers deployed from?

Wherever they were we know they were there, after the massacre. So why couldn’t they have been standing by during the concert?

I want to mention something again and I will keep writing about this until I get answers. The local news media should be ashamed of themselves for not hounding Lombardo on this.

Where was the LVMPD SWAT Team that night?

Why was it that after one hour and five minutes after the last shots were fired, was there only one SWAT Team member available to make entry into a suspect(s) room who had just slaughtered and wounded innocent concert goers. That entry team consisted of that lone SWAT officer and three patrol officers.

Last week the Las Vegas Review Journal ran a story that MGM Resorts International was considering donating some land to the LVMPD at the festival grounds where the massacre occurred, to be used for a SWAT headquarters. The story was confirmed by MGM and the LVMPD. Great timing MGM, that doesn’t look suspicious at all.

Here’s the problem I have with that.

Put a building on the same grounds that was vulnerable from a sniper attack from an elevated position and make that HQ for your special weapons and tactics team, your anti-terrorist squad, so they could be picked off by another sniper attack or worse. They might as well paint a target right on the building. They would be putting cops lives in danger as if they don’t already have enough to worry about.

Let us not forget that ISIS has been telling jihadists in this country for years to target police and military in this country and their families. So, let’s make it easy for them to take out the LVMPD SWAT Team by building them a nice new HQ in public view. Sheriff Joe Lombardo, have you lost your freaking mind?

If that would ever come to fruition it would be nothing more than a public relations stunt, so the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) could advertise to all the tourists that they are now safe because the LVMPD SWAT Team is right there on the strip. I never heard of such crap in all my life.

Then this past Friday after federal search warrant affidavits were released we learned that days after the massacre the FBI did know that someone else assisted Paddock. His girlfriend Mary Lou Danley. She told the FBI that her fingerprints would be on the cartridges because she helped load magazines, but knew nothing of the attack.

I said very early on in some of the over forty articles I have authored for the Baltimore Post Examiner on the massacre that I didn’t believe that she knew nothing and regardless of what the FBI said in those affidavits, I believe she knew.

On Tuesday the lawyer for the LVMPD told the judge there could be possible criminal charges in about 60 days. Here we go again, sound familiar. Just like the FBI when they said their report will be released on Oct. 1 of this year.

One of Laura Ingraham’s guests last night on her show, retired LVMPD Lt. Randy Sutton when asked if the police screwed up, responded, no they didn’t they handled the investigation at the outset with professionalism.

I guess he and I have different definitions of what professionalism is.

Leaking crime scene photographs to the press thus compromising a criminal investigation, allowing an unauthorized photographer to enter the 32nd-floor hallway crime scene and tampering with a dead body before the arrival of a forensics team is not what I would call professional. I would call that criminal.

Randy Sutton expressed concern about why the Homicide Division was pulled off the case. I agree with his concern.

The Baltimore Post Examiner broke the story that the Homicide Division was pulled off the investigation and it was given to the Force Investigation Team (FIT) that normally investigates officer-involved shootings and use of force.

Undersheriff Kevin McMahill, after the BPE story, broke later admitted that FIT had investigated Paddock’s suicide and that his wife was at the time the commander of FIT. I always thought that was just a little too convenient.

We have been swallowing a boatload of cow manure since Oct. 1. It just keeps getting worse and worse.

I am wondering if the casino owners in Las Vegas and the LVCVA agree with the statement that Sheriff Lombardo made this past Saturday concerning Stephen Paddock.

“It’s important for us to forget that and move on,” Lombardo said.

It’s all about getting answers for the 58 people who were slaughtered and the over 550 wounded and injured in the worst mass shooting in American history that occurred on October 1, 2017, on the Las Vegas Strip.

About the author

Doug Poppa is a US Army Military Police Veteran, former law enforcement officer, criminal investigator and private sector security and investigations management professional with 40 years of experience. In 1986 Mr. Poppa was awarded “Criminal Investigator of the Year” by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia for his undercover work in narcotics enforcement. He was also re-assigned to the Northern Virginia Regional Narcotics Enforcement Task Force for 18 months. In 1991 and again in 1992 Mr. Poppa’s testimony under oath in court led to the discovery that exculpatory evidence was withheld from the defense by the prosecutor and sheriff’s office officials during the 1988 trial of a man accused of attempted murder of his wife that led to his conviction. As a result of his testimony the man was ordered released from prison, given a new trial in 1992 and found not guilty. Mr. Poppa became the subject of local and national news media attention as a result of his testimony which led to the demise of his 12-year police career. After losing his job, at the request of the FBI, Mr. Poppa infiltrated in an undercover capacity a group of men who were plotting the kidnapping of a Dupont Chemical fortune heir and his wife in 1992. His stories have been featured on Inside Edition, A Current Affair, and CBS News’ Street Stories with Ed Bradley. Contact the author.